Now that NA LCS Expansion is over with...

C9: look as dominant if not more so than they always do

TSM: We shouldn't use IEM as a forecast, I'm sure they can fix their communication issues and get synergy rolling with Santorum rolling soon enough.

Curse: look really strong, and now they have Fenix (former Jin Air mid laner) so that will make piglet more comfortable, and xpecial is always consistent, I'm sure they'll dominate at least for a portion of the split.

CLG: will probably turn out awful. I don't think Zionspartan is gonna help in any way, and link will probably be mediocre to bad like he always is. Idk why Doublelift just doesn't move on to a better organization already.

Dignitas: we have to see how their new top and adc turn out, but i expect anything major from them. Middle of the pack at best.

LMQ: who knows about this team. Going from one language to multiple will certainly hurt them. Who knows how good XWX's English is. But with an almost complete roster change, idon't expect them to be nowhere near as dodominates they were last year.

EG: we still don't know their top and support players, but there is a lot of promise with their young players, especially pobelter. I also think a lot of internal issues hindered them last year, not player talent.

T8: New kids on the block, probably won't take the split by storm, but will hopefully have adecent showing.

Coast: have lots of potential to be good, i do think it will take time for them to iron out all of the little things, but if they can i easily see them at least middle of the pack if not higher.

Curse academy: same with coast, they have a good team as is, it's just a matter of them adapting to the na lcs scene.

C9 will probably return to dominant form with Hai being back to stable health. TSM looks very iffy, hopefully they can work on their synergy. T8 and CA looks like they could have potential.

I think C9 is going to start out on top, maybe stay there a while. Same roster, same strong team from last season.

LMQ...who the fuck knows what they're up to.

CRS is going to be a wildcard, it'll depend entirely on the new roster's synergy. I know I'm hype to see how well Xpiglet meshes.

No idea what's going on with Dig.

CLG is pretty stacked too, but Doublelift has proven that he is hard to get along with; again, pretty much comes down to team synergy. If they're working together, they're gonna be one of the strongest teams this year.

EG has struggled, I don't see them not struggling again, even with the new players.

CA, CST, and T8 are new, they're going to have to play catch up. CA is in a good place right now, mostly because Saint is going to lead them strongly on to the scene. The other two have some kinks to iron out.

And, finally, TSM. IEM was a good way to demonstrate where they're at, in that Santorin needs to step up, and their veterans (Bjerg) need to shake off the solo queue slop. I think if they can get the midlane/jungle synergy working again, they're going to be in a great place, and if any team has proven they can overcome the odds and step up to a challenge, it has time and again been TSM.

As for Dignitas, it's pretty easy, they'll end up 1 spot above relegation after having a good season ;P

C9 will most likely be the strongest team, at IEM they already showed their old strategic superiority

TSM still seems to be too complacent, they really would have to be willing to be more innovative/risk taking in order to get a shot of finally making an impact even outside of NA.

LMQ..absolutely unknown sicne almost everyone left. Though if you look at the new Samsung-rooster that did start with 5 new man, it can aswell be a chance

CRS will end #4

EG they showed real potential during the end of last split, hope they keep on going

DIG pretty similar to TSM actually, but I think DIG is more likely to try out new things and make it work

CLG maybe they should have Doubellift playing other lanes for one season, so they maybe finally can come together as a team, and not of a bunch of players hoping their ADC will pull through

CA dunno, guess it´ll depend on who´s gonna buy them...potential for sucess and failure is there

CST definitely have to step up further, maybe should get a new midlaner - but Impaler looked incredible strong in the qualifier

T8 mh, as I think I heard CarliforniaTrlolz wanted to focus on his life besides lol they propbably don´t stand much chance - though if he keeps on playing they might aswell give C9 a real fight for #1

Top of the pack ( no specific order)

• CLG
• Cloud 9
• Tsm
• Curse

The rest of these teams are just unknowns to me, the expansion tournament was awful. It didn't look promising from an of the teams really because all the games looked so unorganized and messy. Hopefully the rest of the teams play up the competitions when they get into LCS or else it's just going to be a bunch of "throw away" games for the top 4 and the only matches that will matter are the ones that they play against the other 3.

It's kinda tough to decide right now, but as it looks...

C9 TSM/CLG CLG/TSM CRS LMQ EG CA DIG CST T8

I haven't seen enough of any of teams to make fair judgement though. Plus I don't even know if LMQ has a full new roster. I've only seen two games of DIG in IEM Cologne, but their bottom lane looks weakest of all the teams I've seen so far (haven't seen T8, LMQ, or CRS's yet). Even a couple of the challenger teams bottom lanes look stronger. TSM had a weak showing at San Jose, but that could just be the roster issues. C9 looks as strong as ever, so I think they'll retake first unless CLG, TSM, or maybe even CRS step up to the challenge.

As a fan though, I hope to see CLG, C9, and CRS as 1st, 2nd, and 3rd. I hope CST doesn't get relegated, cuz Impaler's one of my favorite junglers ever.

We can only go off of what we have actually seen, so it is hard to say, but...

C9 - We have seen they are strong so hard NOT to put them here.

CRS - VERY strong looking roster right now and I just can't put them below third but I'm a bit biard so...2nd for now

TSM - Still TSM but they don't look very good right now.

CST - I think this group will surprise but more I really don't trust CLG or EG and no clue what's up with LMQ

CA - Think they can finish in the top 4-5 but they need some work (and I wouldn't mind a new jungler

edit: half my post randomly poofed.

Anyways, basically I don't trust the teams below this 5th spot just yet until we know more roster spots that are still open or see less sloppy play. DIG in IEM right now looks straight up bad (getting wrecked by a random Turkish team with quite a few subs), their bot lane looks horrible. no idea what is up with** LMQ**, CLG is probably the best of the bot 5, Team 8 I'm not impressed with out of the three ex challenger teams,** EG** could get 5-6 but not expecting anything more.

Well since yall seemed to go more in depth, I guess I'll try, but again I don't know too much.

C9: Often a strong team, was a little shaking during the last split, but still strong. They performed well at IEM San Jose. Sneaky's very consistent and actually looked pretty strong at both Worlds and San Jose. Not saying that they're invincible though. They have a few weak points in Hai and Lemon's consistency though, so we'll see how the other teams adapt.

TSM: When they build their syngergy back, I suspect they'll be strong again. They always manage to surprise me with how well they do by just letting Bjergsen carry. Dyrus is great too, but he always gets camped. Wildturtle's pretty inconsistent though. Some days he takes on sneaky and double, other days he gets taken down by cop and qtpie (RIP DIG imaqtpie). Lustboy's pretty good, but i think turtle was stronger with Xpecial. Depends mostly on their team synergy and how long that process takes. Also on if Santorin is better than Amazing was. Idk much about him, I only saw his games at San Jose, and he looked average.

CLG: I do think Zion is the right pickup (or at least the best possible at that time) for a top laner. I think he's pretty versatile when it comes to picks, although I don't remember how well he plays on tanky champs other than Nasus. Hopefully it's good since they seem to be resurfacing in the meta. He seems like he'll be a better fit than Nien and Seraph. Haven't sen Xmithie play either, but I don't have high expectations. I think at best he'll be good, and at worst he'll be slightly below average. Link was really inconsistent last split, some games great, other games bad. He still is good at Ori and Lulu at least. Double and Aphro fell off at the end of the split too. I didn't see the relegation matches they had against CA, but I heard they stepped it up in the last 3 games. Dlift also seems to be practicing in soloq a lot more too, so idk what to expect. Hopefully the bot lane resurges strong. Another factor is how well Scarra's coaching will work for them.

CRS: They have language barriers, but now that they have Fenix, that could reduce that issue quite a bit. I'm not sure how Piglet will mess with Xpecial. CRS was great at the early game, but they couldn't often snowball those advantages into wins. I think they actually had the most first bloods in the NA LCS. I'm still not confident in IWD as their jungler, he plays average I guess. They will also have synergy issues, since both Cop and Voyboy left. Not sure what to expect from Fenix gameplay wise, I haven't seen him play yet. Also, the 4th curse is too strong!

LMQ: Depends on the roster they get. I don't think they'll get an exceptional roster in such a short time. But they still have XWX at least. I expect Adrian to be a decent support, but I know absolutely nothing about him as a player. Right now, LMQ is a complete wildcard in this, they're the only team I have no guess or speculation as to where they'll place.

EG: Look better than they ever have in the NA scene. I have great expectations for them, no relegation this split hopefully. It depends on who they get to replace Krepo and Innox. Helios seemed to be the right move for jungle, the team looked completely refreshed when he joined. They actually performed above my expectations last split, and Pobelter and Altec are really good. Pobelter seems to constantly improve every split, so we'll see.

CA: Looked pretty dominant in the challenger scene, and exceeded my expectations. They have Cop and Bunny back in the bottom lane, they've already been paired in the lcs before and performed well, so bottom lane should be solid. Cop is consistent, but he's not much of a player maker like dlift or sneaky. He's more passive like Rekkles which is good or bad depending on the occasion. Keane is a good mid, I haven't seen much, but I hear he's really good, and I usually don't hear much about challenger scene players unless they actually are good, so I have high expectations of him. Haven't seen much of their top laner, (can't remember his name) but he looked solid from the little I have. I usually don't pay attention to Saint, and I've heard it's possible he'll find another jungler for the team, so no analysis there.

DIG: After losing Scarra, Zion, and Imaqtpie, I don't really expect too much from DIG. Their new players are also Korean imports, so they'll have language barriers and communication issues like CRS. After those 3 games against aces, DIG actually performed even worse than I expected. Bot lane looks out of sync and Core hasn't been very impressive so far. Aces bottom lane actually looked better imo. Kiwikid is probably the worst support in NA. Crumbzz is a great player knowledge wise, but not nearly as good performance wise. Gamsu (is it Gamsu or Gansu?) seems good so far at least. They still have Shiptur who is a great midlaner, so who knows. He and Zion tag team carried Coast, maybe he can carry new DIG.

CST: Impaler's good. Jesiz wasn't too great on SK, but the Na mids aren't quite as strong as Eu's, so he might do notably better. Sheep's good too, I personally didn't pay attention to mash, so idk about him. Cris needs to be more consistent. I still don't think CST will do to well in LCS, but the challenger teams in the LCS qualifier all looked like nearly LCS level teams, so I could be underestimating them and CA, we'll see. My expectations aren't too high though, since they're a new team heading into the LCS.

T8: Haven't seen anything from them, so I have no clue of where they'll place. Haven't heard much about them either, but from the little I've heard, I'm just randomly guessing that they're the worst team.

c9 and crs. everything else is meh. but is piglet and crs cant communicate due to language block then they are meh also but if they can communicate then c9 is going to have a run for their money. i got my money on C9 tho. TSM is falling off hard from what we saw at IEM

My predictions CRS TSM C9 CLG

as of today

c9 crs tsm eg lmq

That would be my guess for next season: C9 TSM CRS CLG EG DIG T8 CA LMQ CST

I really don't think LMQ will come out strong because of the hefty roster change! Coast is very underwhelming.